You may not know it, but if you own an Apple phone, a Samsung device, a pair of Nikes, or a Northface bag, there is a greater than 50% chance it was made in Vietnam.
Once, the label “Made in Vietnam” prompted pejorative questions like “are Vietnamese Adidas shoes fake?” Now, Vietnam is increasingly the manufacturing and research base of top-tier brands in electronics, apparel, footwear, and furniture, from Swedish Fjällräven to USA Intel. This is one of the main reasons we are so bullish on Vietnam.
This makes Vietnam great for shoppers: cities like Hanoi and HCMC have hundreds of stores packed with discounted products from name-brands, such as Northface gear, Merrell shoes, and Fjällräven bags. Or, if you are an entrepreneur, you can easily visit many high-quality small manufacturing workshops and quickly source your own white-label product.
If you’ve purchased a Sumsung phone in North America or Europe, chances are it was manufactured in Vietnam. The Galaxy Z is an example product that is made in Vietnam
There are two major manufacturing plants in Vietnam, near HCMC and Hanoi, wherein over 50% of all Samsung smartphones are manufactured. Samsung continues to invest more capital into Vietnam: in May 2020, Sumsung announced they would open another smartphone factory in Vietnam, as well as another factory in Ho Chi Minh City to make televisions, air conditioners and washing machines.
Furthermore, in 2022, Samsung is planning to relocate their major R&D operations to the west of Hanoi, making Vietnam its largest R&D center in South East Asia [source].
No! According to Reuters, about half of all Nike shoes are made in Vietnam. This is close to our own tally of Nike manufacturers listed on MEC.ca (~ 1/3 of Nike products were made in Vietnam). The American sport apparel and footwear company has about 200 manufacturing plants in Vietnam.
Nonetheless, the question of “are Nike shoes made in Vietnam fake?” still persists on the inter-webs, perhaps due to consumers’ unfamiliarity with Vietnam and its rapid economic ascension.
According to the New York Times, Nike wants to increase their production in Vietnam, but ongoing trade-disputes between the USA and Vietnam have stymied bilateral trade agreements.
You may never open your PC and see a tiny “Made in Vietnam” sign on the Intel processor, but Intel is moving more and more large-scale operations to Vietnam [source].
Of all its global sites, Intel has its largest assembly and test site at the Saigon Hi-Tech Park, near Ho Chi Minh City. Apart from this Vietnamese site, Intel operates seven other assembly and testing facilities in the USA, Costa Rica, China and Malaysia.
Intel continues to invest large sums of money into Vietnam, recently adding $475 million towards enchancing Vietnam’s production of 5G products and its 10th genearation core chips.
Throughout the cities of Vietnam, you’ll see the iconic 1970-style Kånken rucksack everywhere — locals are surprised to hear that the faux-retro product is deemed a high-end hiking-durable Swedish mid-luxury brand.
It is difficult to get official numbers, but the majority of Fjällräven products seem to be made in Vietnam. We did a quick tally of 20 different Fjällräven products on MEC.ca (pants, jackets, hats, bags), and our unofficial survey found that 70% of Fjällräven products were manufactured in Vietnam, while the remainder were made in China.
We inspected Adidas’ list of suppliers and factories: Vietnam ranks #2 globally, after China, in terms of numbers of factories. As of Nov 2021, Adidas had third-party factories in 48 countries, with the highest countries being:
Although China has more factories, Vietnam has the largest workforce producing Adidas products: there are over 200,000 workers in Adidas-supplying factories in Vietnam, whereas China has only 88,000 workers. The largest Adidias-supplying factory has over 89,000 workers at the Hoa Phu Industrial Zone in Vinh Long province .
The Vietnamese suppliers have names like Eclipse Polymers, Formosa Textile, Regina Miracle International, Starite International, United Sweethearts Garment, Vietnam Elite Global Footwear Manufacturing Company Limited, and are located in more than a dozen different provinces, from Nghe An to Binh Duong to Ho Chi Minh City.
As for how many items are actually made in Vietnam, in 2017, the CEO of Adidas (Kasper Rorsted) made a statement that 44% of Addidas shoes and boots were made in Vietnam.
Until recently, the South-Korean electronics company LG had its largest phone manufacturing plant in Vietnam [source]. This was recently sold to the Vietnamese mega-corporation VinGroup (HM:VIC), as LG exits the mobile business.
Beyond phones, LG continues to invest more into its Vietnamese operations, with a recent investment of $750 million into organic light-emitting diode display manufacturing plants close to Hai Phong (near Hanoi). This brings LG’s total investment into Vietnam at over $3 billion, as of November 2021 [source].
Even more importantly, LG is building a second research and development center in Vietnam, which, much like Samsung, demonstrates LG’s confidence in the intellectural capital of Vietnam.
No, not all North Face products with a “Made in Vietnam”-tag are fake (as was routinely claimed 8 years ago). Today, most of North Face products are made in Vietnam. Walking around Hanoi, it is hard not to see a local shopping selling discounted products.
It is difficult to get official numbers, but we did a quick survey of 14 different products on MEC.ca (including clothes, shoes, sleeping bags, jackets, gloves) and found that 57% of The North Face products were manufactured in Vietnam — by far the majority. The remainder were made in Jordan, El Salvador, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Cambodia.
The Taiwanese company Foxconn is the key technology supplier that undergirds Apple’s mobile products as well as Google’s Pixel 5. So, if you own an Apple phone, there is a good change that it was manufactured in Vietnam.
The specific percentage of Foxconn production that comes from Vietnam remains unclear. However, there are hints that it is substantial: in a 2020 Annual General Meeting, the Foxconn Chairman Young Liu stated, for the first time, that Vietnam is Foxconn’s that largest manufacturing hub in Southeast Asia [source].
Foxconn seems to be investing more in India as its future production base rather than Vietnam, but the two countries are its top priorities. For instance, in 2018 and 2019, Foxconn invested over $200 million into Vietnamese production, compared to over $370 million invested into India
Little did I know that the vast majority of Merrell high-ends shoes and boots are made in Vietnam. You can easily find local shops in major cities selling discounted, quality Merrells (just beware of fakes, which should be easy to detect).
The American clothing retailer Everlane is a new “zero waste” fashion brand. They incorporate mostly recycled materials into their products and brand themselves as “ethical manufacturing”.
As of the time of publicaton, 100% of their suppliers were from Vietnam. You can read about their factories near Ho Chi Minh City here. What is remarkable about Everlane is that they are proud of their Vietnamese connections — expect more corporations to boast of their Vietnamese connections!
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